Recruiting Wrap

Rayvonte Rice: Mr. Basketball candidate?

Posted by: Jeremy Werner

Thursday, August 13, 2009 8:46 AM

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Rayvonte Rice was a major reason the Champaign Centennial Chargers won the IHSA Class 3A state championship last year. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound guard averaged 17 points and seven rebounds per game as a junior and made plenty of clutch shots at the state finals.

For his senior season, Rice set even higher goals.

"My goal is to try to be (Illinois) Mr. Basketball," Rice said.

And the team?

"I think we can win state again," he said.

Plenty of Division I colleges think Rice has the talent to back up his ambition. The Centennial standout now has offers from 16 Division I schools with his newest offers coming from Nevada and TCU. Other offers on the table are Illinois State, Oregon State, Drake, St. Louis University, Akron, Detroit, Wagner, Kent State, Loyola, Miami (Ohio), Ohio, Virginia Commonwealth, Western Michigan and Eastern Illinois.

Rice traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, on Wednesday to visit the Drake campus.

"It was pretty nice," Rice said. " I liked it."

Rice said the three schools that are sticking out right now are Nevada, Drake and Ohio. Former teammate James Kinney, point guard on Centennial's state title team, will be a freshman at Ohio. Rice said playing with Kinney again would be fun but that he wants "to see which school is the best fit" for him.

Once a standout football player - he rushed for 880 yards as a junior - Rice gave up football to concentrate on basketball. The move has paid off. Rice traveled with the Chicago-based AAU squad Rising Stars this summer during the July evaluation period. He made stops in Orlando, Chicago and Philadelphia, where he caught the attention of even more schools.

"I was playing on a real nationally known team this year, the Rising Stars," Rice said. "I had to challenge myself more and play hard. I think I played real good. I think this period got me a lot of coaches because a lot of them are calling now. I had a lot of mid-majors after the state tournament but a lot of high-majors have been calling lately."

Some of the high-majors calling Rice include Missouri, DePaul, Boston College, Cincinnati, Indiana and Penn State. The stocky guard said he'll likely hold off on making a commitment until the high-major programs decide if he deserves a scholarship offer.

"(The high majors are) just going to see who else commits first then offer probably," Rice said. "Some of the high-majors are recruiting me pretty heavily."

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